#the road Cormac McCarthy

[ellamorgan333]

starting cormac mccarthy’s the road tonight!!!

wish me luck yall i’m probably gonna mentally ill about this one like i was with blood meridian

[xoxo-314]

:(

[now-that-i-saw-you]

Thinking of The Road as a very dark metaphor for being a parent & the fears that come with it. You were appointed by God to protect them, you'd do anything, you'd kill anyone for them. Love isn't gentle, it's a shotgun, it's being ready to set someone on fire if they even think about hurting your child. But you still want to teach them to be kind, that there is kindness. In the past, the world was brighter, calmer, happier. You can't show your child how the past was like, there's only the uncertain future. You try so hard to show them that there's hope, to be kind. But how can you be kind when trying to protect your child? You teach them kindness but can't pratice what you preach. You try so hard to shelter them, don't let them see how bad things are, whatever makes it into their brain stays there forever. It doesn't matter, they'll see it. They already have, and they'll see more. You'll watch the world hurt them. You'll watch walls build around their heart. You'll watch them close off to you, because you lied, because they're terrified. You're terrified too. They're going to hurt you, you're going to hurt them. What can you do about it? You don't mean to hurt each other. You're only trying to protect them, then you realize they're doing the same.

Thinking about how the father was always going to die. He always knew it was inevitable. How he walked for months (years?) with the boy to find people, shelter, "the good guys" only to die right before. Thinking about the man who comes to take the child and says they weren't sure whether to leave him to die after his father. Were they only going to take the child to safety once the father was gone? Is it because they know the father will never trust them? You hold your child's hand throughout the journey, but the rest of it they'll have to do by themselves. The only thing you can do until then is teach them to have hope, but hold on tight to the gun.

[missfazzington]

Just finished reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road and I have to say that never before had I cried with a piece of literature.

I've read many melancholic books, most of which have moved me in different ways, but never before had a book reached me in such a raw emotional way that I physically began tearing up while approaching its end. The Road transmitted me its hopelessness in a way that absorbed me and made me accompany the characters like no other book has achieved; I felt their hunger, their cold, I sat before the dying blaze under the despairing ash and I experienced their euphoric glee when they fetched something to eat for the day. I shared their emotions and their worries in a way such that I did not feel unaffiliated from their narrative, I suffered with them and dreaded the every turn of a page. Never had I experienced such commotion from so little as one of the protagonists finding a new pair of shoes or a blanket, yet this was the case with The Road.

I'd write a tremendous rant that explored each point of the story that I enjoyed, but I genuinely want to keep it spoiler-free because of how much not knowing the ending influenced my experience. Had I spoiled myself, I probably would've not been touched by the story as deeply as I was, because uncertainty is a great factor of what makes it great. All I dare to say is that the ending is like the entire rest of the piece, and that goes many ways.

I truly, truly cannot recommend the book enough and I'm even saddened by the limitations of my vocabulary and graceless, hurried expression, because I know that my unmindful, clumsy dialect fails at expressing the profundity of this work and how it reached me.

As always, McCarthy manages to transmit his paradoxical style that is somehow monotone and so profoundly melancholic that it dazes the reader at the same time. It is raw, emotionlessly passionate, and every verse feels deeply personal, like a story the author tells you and you alone thanks to his disregard for literary formalities that breaks the boundaries between reader and author. McCarthy's signature is not only not lost in this work that deviates so much from his usual stories, but is, in fact, more present than ever, carrying an impactful memorability that sticks with you like no other author's makings can. The reflections he presents in his works often leave you pondering in the afterglow of the narrative, and that is also the case for this story.

The Road is a justification for kindness. A dive into the dense complexity of our spirit and the philosophy of love. It reminded me of things I had forgotten and it showed me a few things I knew not. If you are looking for a dissection of the nature of hope that shakes your spirit and wells your eyes, I reiterate: please, please read The Road.

And please, please carry the fire.

[z3phyr4s]

Because I am a curious bitch at heart. reblogs welcome/encouraged. breach containment if you choose.

[is-it-horror]

Obligatory note that media is not beholden to a single genre, and many films/tv/books encapsulate many different genres. The point of these polls is to ask "would you consider this to be under the umbrella of horror, based on your own definition of the genre?". Please elaborate on your opinions in the tags!

[adaptations-polls]

Which version of this do you prefer?

[saym0-0]

this is genuinely the worst written book i have ever read. a year six could write it better

[twosides--samecoin]

"RJ wears two bullets in his hat in case he and Duncan are cornered and he has to emergency pull the plug on them" is my "he wouldn't fucking say that" because

a) I've shot a Winchester or two in my time and he is not using .308 rounds on him and his child in quick succession if that's what he has to do to avoid the same fate as Lucy. I promise you RJ would see the issues inherent to accomplishing that task in an emergency. I'm not gonna get too deep into it on this fine Wednesday morn' but suffice to say: rifles are meant to be shot one way and this HC requires an alternative method that would be pretty easy to mess up and would require uh. At least a few minutes of lead time

b) Even if the bullets are a largely symbolic and half-hearted idea formed in the absolute depths of his depression (and hell, I write Angstville depths of his depression RJ), there's a lot of things I know I think when depressed that I don't really mean

c) "but what if he's in a Carla/Boone situation where Duncan is surrounded by ferals and backed against a wall and there's no escape" Yeah sure fine. The multiverse is a cruel mother. Situations could happen that could warrant mercy killing Actions.

d) My RJ/Duncan are inspired by Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which is a book where survival is two sides of an ugly coin. I see him exhausting every other option, then telling Duncan to take his rifle and run like hell; he'd sacrifice himself. I have a hard time seeing RJ actually looking at Duncan in his scope and going through with it: If there is any other option, who is he to decide his child's fate in this way?

addendum: Live and let live if this is your HC; what makes me disagree with a HC tends to be weighing it against practical/mechanical issues, so my interpretation is the bullets are a symbolic representation of people he loves.

[blueberripancake]

[100-great-books]

[curatorofthisdigitalmorass]

Cormac McCarthy's The Road - Adaptation by Manu Larcenet

[xoxo-314]

new book :)

[crawlingbetweenearthandheaven]

"Once there were brook trouts in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."

The Road, Cormac McCarthy

[macrolit]

R.I.P. Cormac McCarthy

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

"Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery"

~Cormac McCarthy, “The Road”